Saturday, August 6, 2016

My students projects

I thought I might mix it up a bit in this next post and showcase a little bit of what the students of my Automotive Foundation class have been up. The last four weeks we have been studying brake systems. As the students have learned there is a lot more to doing a proper brake job than just installing new pads or shoes. The brakes on a vehicle are one of the most important safety features, failure of any of these components can lead to dangerous situations.
Installing new pads onto a rotor that is excessively grooved will cause reduced braking and heat dissipation until the flat surface of the new pad seats into the grooves of the old rotor. Not a very safe situation.
Here the job is being done right. He is installing a new set of brake pads on to the freshly machined rotors of his VW Golf. The smooth flat surface that was machined into the rotor creates the perfect finish for his new brake pads to bed into and properly seat.

Another student had brought in his Dodge Viper to repair the left rear tire that is slowly losing air pressure. Upon inspection he found a piece of metal protruding through the tire and required a plug/patch. He removed the tire from the extremely wide aftermarket wheel only to find that the tire had gone flat too many times on him and the inside of the tire sidewall was damaged beyond repair. Patching the hole and reusing this tire would have created a dangerous situation as the side wall of the tire could have blown out at any time. Not something you would want to happen to any ones vehicle, especially a car with this much horsepower.

Here you can see the rim of the Viper on the tire machine after the tire was removed. It is not your everyday rim size, it is 20" in diameter and I believe around 12" wide. It took an hour to get the tire dismounted from the rim without doing any damage.

About Me

Officially I have been in the automotive trade for twenty years. But I started tinkering with engines at a very early age. I have had an obsession with anything that involves internal combustion starting with the outboards on my Grandfathers fishing boats to leading to dirt bikes and early VWs and hot rods.
During my 20 years in the trade I spent five years at a VW/Audi/Honda high performance shop before moving into a role as a diagnostic technician at a very busy small shop in Langley. I also spent a brief period at the dealer level.
I have recently moved into a role as an Automotive Instructor.